Wikipedia / Boortsog
Wikipedia / Boortsog
Boortsog, boorsoq, baursak, baursaq, bauyrsaq, borsok, or boorsok is a fried dough food found in the cuisines of Central Asia, Idel-Ural, Mongolia, and the Middle East.
Presentation
Boortsog are shaped into triangles or sometimes spheres. The dough consists of flour, yeast, milk, eggs, butter, salt, sugar, and margarine. Tajik boortsog are often decorated with a criss-cross pattern by pressing the bottom of a small strainer on the dough before it is fried. It has been adopted by Cossack cuisine as "bursak".
Boortsog is often eaten as a dessert, with syrup, jam, or honey. They can be thought of as cookies or biscuits; since they are fried, they are sometimes compared to doughnuts. Mongolians and Turkic peoples sometimes dip boortsog in tea. In Central Asia, boorsok is often eaten alongside chorba.
Mekitsa are doughnut-like fried dough balls popular in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Bulgaria, Serbia (especially in the Srem District of Vojvodina), and Slovenia (where they are known as "miške").
Preparation
Dough for boortsog ranges in ingredients from a simple dough to a sweeter, crispier dough. For example, a typical Kyrgyz recipe calls for one part butter, seven parts salt water, and six parts milk, along with yeast and flour, while more complex recipes add eggs and sugar. Also, the dough could be made with kaymak.
Boortsog are made by cutting the flattened dough into pieces. While not usually done in Central Asia, these pieces may be bent and knotted into various shapes before being deep-fried. This is especially common among Mongolians. The dough is deep-fried golden brown. Mutton fat is traditionally used by Mongolians to give the boortsog extra flavor, but vegetable oil may be substituted.
World records
On , the largest boorsok ever, weighing in at , was cooked in Ufa, Russia. Its preparation used 1,006 eggs (about worth), of sugar, of flour, and of Bashkir honey.
On , during the celebration of Mother's Day, a Guinness record was made in Almaty, when of baursaks were cooked in one place in one day. The celebration was held in the form of a culinary battle between teams of mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. Seven teams participated in the competition.
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